


A Blue Box Lands in the Delta Quadrant

by TARDISTraveller42



Category: Doctor Who (2005), Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Action/Adventure, Banter, Comedy, Crossover, Drama, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Mission Fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-23
Updated: 2021-03-12
Packaged: 2021-03-13 21:53:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 12,888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29657838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TARDISTraveller42/pseuds/TARDISTraveller42
Summary: The Voyager crew is enjoying a relaxing morning when a blue box shows up on sensors: a vessel containing physics-defying dimensions and one injured alien. When they meet the alien, who calls himself John Smith, they are in for a terrible, wonderful day filled with chaos, peril, and a whole lot of rescuing.Or, the day the Twelfth Doctor met the Voyager crew.
Comments: 8
Kudos: 19





	1. What is a Phone Box Doing in the Delta Quadrant?

Chapter One  
“What is a Phone Box Doing in the Delta Quadrant?”

Harry called times like these ‘the calm before the inevitable storm’. They were in between missions, cruising at impulse toward the Alpha Quadrant while they waited to rendezvous with Seven and Chakotay’s shuttle. Hopefully they’d return in the next few hours with the dilithium B’Elanna wanted, and then they could be on their way out of this empty region of space. So empty, in fact, that Harry was bored.

“Hey Tom,” he called across the room, “how long do you think it would take to get home at this speed? A millennium?”

“Ooh, maybe even two,” Tom said in return. He sat back in his seat, resting his hands on the back of his head.

It was kind of nice, here in year 7 of their long journey home. They were more than a crew now. They were family. And as a family, Captain Janeway was more lax with the rules than she would have otherwise. In between red alerts and actual work, she allowed them this time to banter and joke around. Tuvok still wasn’t pleased with it, but at this point he kept his complaints to himself.

Today, however, even Tuvok couldn’t complain. Because the next one to join in the fun was the Captain herself.

She said, “I expect even you would look a little older by then, Ensign. Although you haven’t seemed to age in the past 7 years.”

Tom glanced back. “I’ve noticed that, too. Do you think he’s being affected by some kind of alien presence, Captain?” he joked. “One time in our Captain Proton program there was this 150 year-old guy who didn’t look a day over 40.”

Tuvok lifted his head, raising an eyebrow that Harry could see all the way from his console.

“Mr. Paris,” he sighed, “I hope that you do not use your juvenile holodeck programs as a reference for real-world phenomena we encounter.”

Tom turned all the way in his seat, jaw dropped slightly.

“Juvenile?”

Captain Janeway and Harry both laughed at both his expression and his high-pitched tone. 

But, like always, something suddenly appeared to put an end to their fun. A beeping sensor on Harry’s console, which he turned to with an automatic snap of the head.

“There’s a small vessel approaching.” His brows furrowed as he double-checked his readings. “That’s strange.”

“What?” asked the Captain, turning to him sharply.

Harry shook his head.

“It seems to be composed of...wood.”

She stared at him for a long second, then stood.

“Put it on the screen.”

The vessel was, as Harry had noted, composed of wood. But since that was impossible, he guessed that the sensors only _thought_ it was wood. Maybe it was a substance they didn’t know about; something unique to the Delta Quadrant? 

He zoomed in further, and found the most peculiar image he’d ever put on the viewscreen. 

It was...a box. A blue, wooden box drifting in space. A blue, wooden box that was blowing smoke through the apparent cracks between its door and window frames. Wait, that was odd. Why did it have writing on it? English writing? 

“It’s a Police Call Box,” Tom murmured, just loud enough that Harry could hear him. “They used to use them in Britain in the 60s, to call for law enforcement. It was a time before communicators - even before telephones.”

“Okay,” Captain Janeway said, bracing a hand on her hip. “The question is: what’s a police...whatever you said, doing in the middle of the Delta Quadrant?”

Harry checked his sensors again. “I’m afraid I don’t have an answer for you, Captain. But I do have another question.” He looked up, jaw dropping slightly, “How is someone living inside that thing?”

“What?!” the Captain gasped, rushing up the platform to double check his sensors. 

Across the room, Tuvok raised his head with rarely widened eyes. “I can confirm: there is a lifeform aboard the vessel.”

“Unbelievable,” the Captain said with an unmistakable smile touching her lips.

Harry cringed as his next readings came in.

“Captain, it looks like that ship is seriously damaged. And the only lifesign I’m detecting is starting to waver.”

“Beam them to Sickbay.”

“Aye, Captain.” Harry started the process with baited breath. The first attempt didn’t hold; the ship was throwing off so much radiation; so many strange readings that it was confusing the transporters. But the second attempt held. They landed in Sickbay safe and sound, or as safe and sound as possible, under the circumstances. Harry breathed out a sigh of relief. “Got them.”

“Well,” she sighed, setting a hand on Harry’s shoulder, “If you need me, I’ll be in Sickbay figuring out who we just rescued. Tuvok, you have the Bridge.”

“Aye, Captain.”

Harry watched her disappear through the Turbolift doors, then shared a long look with Tom.

If that vessel was from the Alpha Quadrant...if it was from _Earth_...well, it didn’t bother getting his hopes up; he’d done that far too often. But the situation _was_ interesting, there was no doubt about that. So as he got back to his analysis of the alien vessel, Harry let himself wonder. He let himself dream.

He even, against all better judgment, let himself hope.

………….. ……………….. ……………… ………………… …………………..

Kathryn stepped through the doors of Sickbay without really knowing what she’d find. A human, as far away from home as they were? An alien, with a spaceship that just so happened to look like something from Earth? Both possibilities had odds that were slim to none. And yet…

When she dared to look at the Biobed, Kathryn gasped. The man had gray, slightly mad-looking hair. His clothing looked a little dated; perhaps more 21st century than 24th. But other than that, he just looked...human. No spots or fangs or ridged nose. Burns and cuts that revealed red blood. 

She looked to the Doctor, who was cleaning up the man’s injuries as if this was just another day in the office. 

“Is he...Doctor, is he human?”

The Doctor stood back, staring at the man closely.

“He does _appear_ human, at least on the surface. But my scans reveal a different story.”

He took a break from the dermal regenerator to show Kathryn the display on the central computer console. The information was an incomprehensible mess of images with words she could barely understand, so Kathryn waited for a further explanation. As always, the Doctor was happy to provide one.

“He has the double hearts of a Klingon and the regenerative abilities of a starfish. He came in here with a few third degree burns, and they’re already down to first degree.” The Doctor looked at his patient with a shake of the head. “There’s not much I can do for him that he hasn’t already done for himself.”

“Extraordinary,” Kathryn said quietly. “When do you think he’ll wake up?”

“It’s impossible to say.” The Doctor returned to the bedside to continue his treatment, apparently drawn to do _something_ to help even if it wasn’t strictly necessary. 

Kathryn nodded, rubbing her hand across her chin. 

She said, “Keep me informed. We have a _lot_ of questions for him when he wakes up.”

“Aye, Captain. But I must warn you, he might not be active enough to answer questions anytime soon. This level of regeneration uses an extraordinary amount of energy. I expect he’ll want to stay in bed for a while yet.”

…………….. ………………… …………………… …………………………………..

Needless to say, the Doctor was mistaken. 

As soon as his patient woke up, he was restless. In the past, B’Elanna Torres had exhibited similar reactions to waking up in Sickbay, pushing past everyone to try and get back to her shift regardless of a broken rib and internal bleeding. But this was a different level of restlessness. This was outright mutiny.

“Sir,” the Doctor sighed, pushing the man down by the shoulders with a level of holographic strength he normally kept hidden. “I need you to remain in Sickbay until I’ve run another diagnostic. Your body is still recovering and-”

“And I need a doctor’s permission to leave?” the man finished. 

“Well...yes.”

“In that case,” the man pushed himself off of the Biobed, swerving around the Doctor to grab his red-lined jacket from the table, “As a doctor, I’m releasing myself.”

“That’s not how it works! You haven’t even given me your name.”

“What’s in a name?” the man smirked, then sighed. “Alright, it’s John Smith. Happy?”

“John Smith?” the Doctor said slowly. He gave the man a deep-set frown. “Your real name, please.”

“Is John Smith not a normal name in this century?” The man, ‘John’, seemed genuinely curious. “What’s your name, then?”

The Doctor blushed slightly, turning to the PADD in his hand.

“I...haven’t chosen one yet. I’m a hologram,” he clarified.

“A hologram,” John chuckled, crossing to the central computer terminal. “So you don’t even have the authority to keep me here.”

“I most certainly _do_! Now I suggest you get back into the Biobed before I tell my Captain that-”

“Ooh, what’s this then?” John clicked through the computer files, reading impossibly fast. 

The Doctor hurried toward him, but was unable to reach him before John began typing furiously.

“Computer,” said John, “Deactivate the…’Emergency Medical Hologram’. Did I say that right?”

By the time John looked up, the Doctor’s program was disappearing into deactivated oblivion. 

…………………… …………………… ……………………. ……………………………..

When the door opened behind Captain Janeway, she assumed it was one of her junior officers returning to their post after lunch. What she definitely didn’t expect was to see this: the man she had just seen in Sickbay an hour ago, strolling onto her bridge as if he was right at home. She shared a look with Tuvok, who reached for his phaser, and gave him a small shake of the head.

She would figure out this stranger. And she would do it without force, if she could. God only knew what would happen to her crew if they began a firefight with this strange man.

“I see you’ve recovered,” she said, jaw set and expression without humor. “Did the Doctor release you?”

“The Doctor...oh, the hologram?” John smiled casually, tilting his head. “Er, I deactivated him.”

“You…” Janeway sighed into her hand. “How did you even figure out how to do that?”

John shrugged, peeking over crew men's shoulders to get a look at the readouts on the various panels against the back wall. 

“It wasn’t very hard to understand,” he said. “Any idiot could figure it out. Even me.”

Tuvok took a step forward, sans phaser, staring at John with a disgruntled brow.

“You are not, I believe, an idiot,” Tuvok said coolly, pulling John away from the computers. “Somehow, you have managed to get past every security protocol I set in place between Sickbay and the Bridge. How?”

“Ooh, well, that’s a long story actually.” John waved off further questions and hurried down the steps toward Janeway.

She fell back a pace, worried for a moment that he might hurt her. But then she stood her ground. Straightened up. Talked Tom into lowering the phaser he had snatched up to defend her.

John glared at the lowered phaser as if it were something disgusting, then turned back to Janeway.

“Where is my ship?”

“It was badly damaged. But we managed to tractor it into our Shuttle Bay.”

John’s face fell. He brought a hand up to cover his chin as he stepped off for a moment, eyes glazing over as he fell deep into thought.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” he said eerily.

“Why?” Janeway’s eyes lit up, a red alert sounding somewhere in her brain. 

“Because now your ship is in trouble, too.”

…………………. …………………………… ………………………. ………………………….

“Start at the beginning,” Janeway said, leaning over her desk. 

John jumped out of the seat she had provided for him, but her intense glare had him sinking back into it within seconds. A moment of silence passed between them. And then, finally, he spoke, although it was not what Janeway wanted to hear.

“Are we talking about the Big Bang or Adam and Eve?” he said. “I do love a creation story.”

Janeway levelled her gaze with him. It was almost impossible to read him. On the one hand, he seemed like a mischief-maker. But this was nothing like their usual run-ins with shady traders and unethical businessmen. 

“Alright,” she sighed. “Let’s start with your name. You said it’s John Smith. Are you from Earth?”

“No.”

“Then why does your ship look the way it does?”

“It got stuck like that. Look,” he stood again, leaning over the desk until his eyes bore into Janeway’s. “We could do this all day. But right now, both of our ships need looking after.”

“And how do you know that?” she asked carefully; slowly. Her brows furrowed. 

“Your tractor beam, how does it work?” 

Janeway stood back, gazing at him with even more curiosity than before. She was about to argue with him, but decided against it. He hadn’t been forthcoming with any of his answer up til now; she might as well play his game for a little while and see where it led.

“We use graviton emitters to pull or push an object away from Voyager.”

John started to respond, but was interrupted by a comm signal from Engineering. Janeway kept her eyes on him as she told B’Elanna, “Go ahead.”

“Captain, there are a few malfunctions in the graviton emitters down here.”

Janeway’s blood turned to ice. All of a sudden, John didn’t seem like a strange prankster. He seemed like something far more dangerous; far more knowledgeable.

“Oh?” she said into her Comm Badge. “Exactly what kind of malfunctions?”

“It doesn’t seem serious right now, Captain,” said B’Elanna. “It’s just strange that they would conk out like this at random. The computer’s telling me they’re completely out of alignment, but I can’t see any reason why they would be. The emitters weren’t hit by any kind of weapons fire, as far as I can tell.”

“I’ll get back to you in a moment, B’Elanna. Just keep an eye out for any other malfunctions.”

“Aye, Captain.”

With the Comm line down, Janeway began a slow, deliberate approach toward John. She hardly dared to blink as she walked toward him. But he didn’t even seem to notice her threatening eyes. He bounced around the room at full energy, going on about something or other at warp speed. 

Only when John headed for the door did Janeway speak again. And it was one simple command: “Computer, seal the doors to the Ready Room.”

John touched the metal of the door, eyeing it as if he were speaking to it. But whatever he tried didn’t work. A few seconds later, he spun back around to face Janeway with an unreadable expression lining his face.

“I can help,” he said quietly. “Trust me, you need me.”

“Trust you?” whispered Janeway. “You deactivated our doctor, got past every level of security to get onto the Bridge without authorization, and now you seemed to predict the exact part of our ship that would be damaged. The exact part of our ship we used to tractor in _your_ vessel less than a few hours ago.” Janeway backed him against the door. “I’m not going to start trusting you until you start giving us some answers.”

“This is a waste of time,” John sighed.

“I agree. Tuvok.” The door slid open, and John fell into the waiting hands of the Chief of Security, who latched onto his arm. “Take him to the Brig.”

“Aye, Captain.”

John groaned, rolling his eyes.

“This is a mistake. I’m trying to help you!”

“If you are, then you’ll be let out as soon as possible. But until then, I’m not putting my crew at risk. Lieutenant,” she nodded to Tuvok. 

Tuvok pulled John out of the doorway and back through the Bridge. Janeway watched them until the door slid shut again, then sat behind her desk. 

This ‘John’ made her uneasy. She didn’t know why, exactly, beyond the unique circumstances of his arrival here. But there was something about him that felt unpredictable. Dangerous. 

And though Janeway was still an explorer at heart, seven years in the Delta Quadrant had made her skeptical of unpredictable people. They often got people hurt.

They sometimes got people killed.


	2. The Mysterious Blue Box

Chapter Two  
"The Mysterious Blue Box"

John Smith’s ship was the strangest they had ever brought aboard Voyager. So strange, in fact, that Janeway had authorized B’Elanna to investigate it instead of repairing the graviton emitters. Whatever was going on, it had probably started in here. 

This blue box made of wood. 

God, even just looking at it made Janeway’s brain short-circuit. An Earth phonebooth-looking spaceship in the middle of the Delta Quadrant. How had such a thing come about? 

“B’Elanna,” called Janeway, opening the doors to look inside. 

And that’s when her brain properly crashed.

It was...bigger on the inside? No. That didn’t make sense. That was simply impossible. She was a scientist. She could _not_ accept that the laws of physics just _didn’t apply_ to this Police Call Box. That was ridiculous! And yet.

And yet.

“Captain, this place is weird,” B’Elanna said, hurrying to the front door with a spanner in her hand. When a strange noise echoed through the belly of this beast, B’Elanna spun around. She raised the spanner slightly, as if threatening the ship itself. 

“So I noticed,” Janeway said, eyeing the space with incredulity.

The interior design of this spaceship was much different than the exterior. It was sleek, almost all covered in a silvery metal. Staircases led up to beautiful antique bookshelves. At another time, Janeway would’ve been thrilled about all of this. But there was the issue of the smoke coming through the vents; the wires exposed in half of the panels around the central console.

This was a ship that had been eviscerated.

“Did you do this?” asked Janeway, gesturing to the apparent destruction surrounding her.

“Some of it.” 

B’Elanna wiped her sleeve across her brow. It was reasonably warm in here, and with the baby only a month or so away, she was probably exhausted. Janeway didn’t comment on it; B’Elanna would tell her when she needed a break. And as of now, that hadn’t happened yet. In fact, the engineer seemed enthusiastic about her progress.

“We’ve stopped all of the fires and cleared the major electrical hazards in here,” she explained, walking the captain around the central console. “Otherwise, I don’t really know what to do.”

Janeway paused, looking up at the central column. It was lit up by some kind of strange energy, almost like their warp core. But there was something about it that was different somehow. She couldn’t place it exactly, but it was like there was something in there. A presence of some kind.

“B’Elanna,” she said, pulling herself away from the central column and carefully stepping over a few more discarded conduits. “Do you think that our guest could have caused this damage?”

“I’m not sure why he would have. Some of this damage is extensive. If this was on purpose, then he almost sacrificed his ship.”

“I see.”

B’Elanna started to say something, but cut herself off. Janeway watched her closely as she formulated her thoughts. Her hand braced against her back, then fumbled with the spanner she was carrying. Finally, she pulled a tricorder out of her pocket.

A medical tricorder.

“Captain...this is going to sound crazy.”

“Don’t worry. I’m used to crazy today.”

B’Elanna smirked, and then opened the tricorder. 

“Earlier, when I was working in here by myself, I had this feeling that someone was...watching me.” She paused to chuckle at herself. “I took some scans and...well, see for yourself.”

Janeway read the lines on the tricorder as carefully as she could. It was a small graph, with just a small blip in the center. A sharp bell curve that had tapered off within a second.

B’Elanna explained, “Just for a second, I detected a life sign of some kind, coming from all over the ship. Then, just as suddenly, it disappeared off of my sensors.”

The two women shared a long look. 

Okay, this ship was getting weirder and weirder. First it shows up looking like a Police Box. Then it decides to break the laws of physics. Now they’re supposed to believe there’s some sort of life form living within its circuitry? It was all so impossible!

Janeway shook her head, turning around the space to give it a onceover. The longer she was in here, the more uneasy this ship made her. It was anachronistic. It was dark. It held multitudes and yet the walls felt like they were closing in on her.

“Get back to Engineering,” she said finally, forcing her eyes away from the baffling, infinite space around her to look at B’Elanna. “We need to focus on our own ship for a little while; the malfunctions are beginning to crop up in other systems close to the graviton emitters. In the meantime, I’ll try and learn more about Mr. Smith.”

“Aye, Captain,” B’Elanna said softly. She gazed around the space once more, slowly closing her tricorder. Then, with a shake of the head, she hurried out of the room.

Janeway followed close behind, not wishing to be left alone in that place for a second.

………………….. ………………………… …………………….. ………………………….

Janeway paced in front of the doors to the Brig, hands on her hips and teeth biting her lower lip. Tuvok was nearly finished interrogating John Smith, and he hadn’t exactly sounded hopefully about the information he’d received so far. Of course, that could have just been Tuvok being...well, Tuvok. Terse. Brief. To the point.

But then again, nothing so far had gone smoothly with John Smith. He was a strange man; too confident for her liking. Normally when one woke up in their sickbay after seriously damaging their spacecraft, they were groggy, confused, maybe even a bit grateful for the rescue. But not John. 

Now why was that? What made him so cavalier about his predicament; suddenly teleporting, unconscious, onto a Starship that bore the same language as his own vessel? Was this just everyday for him?

The doors to the Brig slid open suddenly, and out walked Tuvok. He wore a troubled frown; the kind he hid from Junior Officers so they wouldn’t be worried. 

The sight of it made Janeway’s blood run cold.

“So?” she asked. “How did it go?”

“John Smith is a curious, and baffling, individual,” Tuvok said, setting his hands behind his back. 

Janeway massaged her chin, watching her chief of security carefully for clues. When she grew impatient, she urged, “Did you learn anything?”

“Indeed. Though I am uncertain whether it is the truth or not.” Tuvok sighed. “John Smith comes from a planet called Gallifrey, which he claims is 250 million light years from Earth.”

“250 million?” Janeway’s jaw dropped. “Well, surely he’s lying about _that_.”

Even when they were first thrown into the Delta Quadrant, all those years ago, they had only been about 70,000 light years from home. One million was too far a distance to imagine. 250 million? Impossible. 

“He also,” Tuvok continued, “claims to be a time traveler.”

Janeway rolled her eyes. Of course he would be a time traveler. Just one more thing to add to her stressful, irritating day. Part of her almost wished that they had never found his dilapidated spaceship this morning. 

But then again...he _had_ been injured. And they _had_ saved him and his ship from certain destruction. Surely that made all of this worthwhile. Even if she’d need to spend half of her next day off writing the report for all of this.

“Captain,” Tuvok said, in a tone of uncertainty that put Janeway on red alert, “There is something else.”

“What?”

“I detected a telepathic presence. However, he has a remarkable ability in shielding his thoughts and emotions. More remarkable than I have ever encountered.”

That wasn’t _too_ bad. It would have been helpful if Tuvok had been able to read John’s thoughts; maybe tell whether he was lying or not. But they could get by without that extra support. They’d faced Borg. They’d gotten through space controlled by Species 8472. They’d survived voids and nebulae that were said to be unsurvivable. Surely they could handle one humanoid with a time machine?

“Don’t worry about it, Tuvok,” she said, setting a comforting hand on his shoulder. “We’ll figure him out eventually.”

………………………. ………………………. ………………… ………………….

“Son of a Targ!” B’Elanna swore, shaking out her hand as the shock pulse through her nerves.

The Jefferies Tube she was working in looked almost as bad as John’s ship. Conduits littered the floor, exposed circuitry lined the walls. If someone happened to crawl in here right now, they’d think she had performed a dissection of some kind on the tech in here. 

She wasn’t without her reasons. Since 1400, half of the systems in Engineering had acquired minor malfunctions. It started with the graviton emitters used by the tractor beam. Then it was the replicators located in Engineering. Now it was the entire computer matrix on Deck 11. 

The reason she called them ‘minor’ malfunctions was because they weren’t dangerous, per say. They were just...strange. Replicators gave out medical tricorders instead of Engineering ones. That was more of an annoyance than anything, given how many tricorders went missing throughout the day. But they could track down a few Engineering tricorders, no problem. 

And the computer wasn’t causing any red alerts, either. Its malfunctions were, like the replicators, more irritating than anything. You’d ask for the time and it would give you the date. You give it a command and it asks you to repeat your query three times before it understands. 

The strangest thing of all was that B’Elanna couldn’t find anything _wrong_ with the connections. There wasn’t a burnt out fuse or a misfiring wire. Even now as she worked on an open panel in this cramped little Jefferies Tube, she couldn’t find any reason why it wouldn’t be working perfectly. The wires were set up properly. The power was on, and at the right level. 

The network was there. It just wasn’t...well, _working_.

“Okay, panel 131,” B’Elanna grunted, reconnecting the wires yet again. “This time I’m gonna turn you on and you’re going to work.”

She looked over her work. Satisfied, she nodded and pressed the switch on the control panel.

Aaaaand the whole thing began sparking, whirring, making terrible coughing-like noises. Before it could overload in her face again, she pressed the power off and shut her eyes.

Well, there went tonight’s dinner date with Tom. 

“What is wrong with you?” she asked the panel. “I’ve never heard you make those noises before.”

B’Elanna stared at the still-smoking panel for a moment. She was an Engineer. And as an Engineer, she had to believe that every problem had a solution. Every event had a cause. You only had to look at it the right way in order to see it.

Reaching into her jacket pocket, she found a new device to try. It was a long shot, but today was a strange sort of day. Maybe…

She looked at the medical tricorder in her hand and slowly opened it. The screen was blank, of course. The wall she was pointing it toward did not contain life. It was a machine. It was...wait.

The screen blipped and...yes! There it was! That same bell curve she had seen earlier, in the TARDIS. A lifesign; just for a moment. 

The same lifesign that she had detected inside John’s spaceship.

“Captain,” B’Elanna tapped her Comm Badge, jaw dropping as she stared at the tricorder readings, “I found something you might be interested in.”

……………………… …………………………. ……………………… …………………

Janeway stood at the window of the Briefing Room, staring out at the stars. Today had started out so calmly. She’d enjoyed a nice big breakfast with Chakotay in the Mess Hall. Then she’d seen him and Seven off and started a gentle shift on the Bridge, cruising at impulse through this strange part of space they had learned to call home. 

Now she was wishing she’d gone on the survey mission instead. Leave Chakotay to deal with all of what was happening behind her.

B’Elanna smacked the table, calling Janeway’s attention back to the other three people in the room: her, Tuvok, and John Smith. 

B’Elanna leaned close to John, who was cornered at the end of the table, and growled, “You are going to tell me _right now_ why there is a lifeform in our ship that we can barely detect.”

John blinked a few times, but otherwise seemed undisturbed. That was, yet again, strange. Normally being shouted at by B’Elanna made someone at least defensive. At this point, Janeway was beginning to think nothing could phase this man.

That made her worried. She met eyes with Tuvok, who seemed to share the same idea. He approached John on the opposite side, closing him into his seat between himself, B’Elanna, and Janeway. Now if he wanted to get up, he’d have to squeeze around one of them, if not two. Hopefully that would make him a little more uneasy.

“Mr. Smith,” Tuvok said, leaning a little closer to John’s face, “Could there have been a hostile alien on your vessel that has now migrated to ours?”

“Hostile,” John said with a smirk. He leaned back in his seat, resting his hands on the back of his head. “That’s a strong word.”

B’Elanna rolled her eyes. “Do you know what’s going on or not?”

John’s smile faded from his lips and from his eyes. Slowly, he lowered his hands and sat upright in his seat. When next he spoke, it was with a seriousness he hadn’t shown before.

“I believe I do.”

“Well then,” Janeway set a hand on the back of his chair. “Please, do enlighten us.”

He looked up at her, his brows furrowed with something like worry. 

Huh. That was...concerning. Nothing up until this point had phased him. But now he was getting all serious. Now he was afraid.

“My ship, my TARDIS, is a living organism,” he explained.

Janeway nodded. “We’ve encountered organic spaceships before. None that looked like a wooden box.”

He smiled at her joke, then let his lips fall into that frown again. The frown that made Janeway’s hair stand on edge.

“Sensors can't detect her lifesigns; they're too nebulous for that. It's like your bioneural gel packs."

Janeway didn't ask how he knew about Voyager's gel packs. Nothing he did surprised her anymore. He could probably fly the ship if he wanted to.

John continued, "However, it is possible that she was infected with a virus; the life sign that you detected. Or, sort-of life sign. And it's also possible that the virus was transferred to your ship through your tractor beam.”

The room fell silent. Janeway met eyes with Tuvok, then B’Elanna. They both seemed to be wondering the same thing; asking the same questions. 

B’Elanna was the first to speak, with a shaking head.

“Our sensors would've been able to read a virus as more than just a blip. We have entire filters for that sort of thing in our tractor beam."

John turned to her sharply.

“The TARDIS isn’t just any old spaceship. To affect her, this virus has to be remarkably sophisticated. Your primitive little gadgets are easy to slip past.”

Tuvok tilted his head, setting a hand on the back of John’s seat so that he was barred in by his and Janeway’s arms.

“I wonder, Mr. Smith,” he said, “is that what your thought process was as you slipped past our security to get to the Bridge?”

John’s lips quirked into a smile. It only lasted a moment, but it was long enough to irritate Janeway. Luckily for him, he chose not to make the joke she saw dancing in his eyes. Instead, he forced the frown back to his face and chose not to respond.

Janeway dropped that issue for the moment, but leaned in closer to the desk. 

“Tell me, John,” she folded her hands together on the tabletop. “When did you make this little discovery of yours? About the virus?”

He turned to her with wide eyes. In that moment he almost looked like a frightened owl caught by...whatever owl’s considered predators. He blinked slowly, a softness entering his eyes that Janeway hadn’t noticed before.

“I wasn’t sure. I knew something was wrong with the TARDIS, but I was knocked out before I could figure out what was causing it.” He licked his lips, glancing from one officer to the others. “I want to help you.”

“And I want to believe you,” Janeway said, shaking her head slightly. 

“Then do,” John said with the beginnings of a smile. 

She stared at him for a long moment. Then she pulled back, gesturing for B’Elanna and Tuvok to do the same. Walking along the table, she kept her eyes locked on his.

“I can’t discount the possibility that you could be lying about this whole thing. For all I know, you have some secret plan and sabotaging our ship is just step one.” She sighed, setting her hands on the table’s surface again. “But if we’re going to stop this from spreading all over the ship, we need to work quickly.”

“I agree,” John said, jumping to his feet.

“Hold on.” Janeway took a few steps around the table. “Tuvok, I want a security officer with him at all times.”

“Aye, Captain.”

John scoffed. “That’s really not-”

“John,” Janeway said, ignoring whatever it was he was going to say, “you’re to report to Sickbay. Work with the Doctor to create an antidote to this virus.”

John’s face fell. 

“The hologram?” 

“Yes, the hologram.” Janeway crossed her arms, staring right into John’s eyes without blinking. “And I expect you to fully cooperate with him. Unless you’d like to spend another few hours in the Brig…”

“That won’t be necessary.” John frowned with a slight sigh, but didn’t make a further argument.

Janeway gave him a toothless smile.

“Good. Now, if there are no more arguments...let’s go save Voyager.”

“And the TARDIS,” John noted.

Janeway levelled her gaze with him, trying to read his mind through his eyes.

“And the TARDIS.”


	3. Matter and Energy; Doctors and Engineers

Chapter Three  
"Matter and Energy; Doctors and Engineers"

“Do these security guards ever smile?”

The Doctor wasted precious time sending a glare to John, who’d just entered his office without permission with an irritating smile and an even more irritating wave toward the security officer standing by the Sickbay doors. But there was no time to be annoyed. He needed to get his program into his Mobile Emitter. And firstly, he had to _put on_ his Mobile Emitter. Oh God, what if it was already too late? Where was it?!

“I should’ve been informed as soon as you realized there was a virus in the main computer,” his voice rose as he spoke, rifling through the PADDs strewn on his desk.

Ah! There was the Mobile Emitter; in its case on the right side of his desk instead of the left. Who had put it on the right side? Now _more_ time had been wasted in searching for it and-

“Sorry about that,” John said, scratching his hair with a lopsided grin. 

He did not, indeed, sound very apologetic. In fact, he looked rather amused with himself. But there was still no time to be annoyed! The Doctor clapped the Emitter onto his arm and turned to the ceiling with balled fists.

“Computer, transfer the EMH program to the Mobile Emitter.”

After phasing in and out with the transfer, the Doctor stabilized. He looked at his hand, checking for glitches. Everything seemed to be in order there. Then he touched his hand with his opposite fingers, as if making sure he was real. Making sure his tactile functions were, well, functioning. 

Everything seemed to be in working order.

And since everything seemed to be in working order, the Doctor shut his eyes and released a great big sigh of relief.

Well, apparently that was all John needed to openly begin smiling. 

The Doctor’s head whipped up, eyes opening with a flash of glaring irritation. He was right! John was smiling! How dare he?!

“I’m glad you’re amused by all of this,” the Doctor grunted.

“I’m sorry,” John shook his head. He still did not look ‘sorry’. “I’ve met a few Holograms in my time, but I’ve never met one that was worried about getting sick.”

The Doctor rolled his eyes, then let them shut for a moment. If he was supposedly ‘rude’ and had a ‘terrible bedside manner’, then what did that make John? 

Honestly, if he made it through today without breaking the Hippocratic Oath it would be a miracle.

“Listen,” the Doctor sighed, stepping around the desk with his eyes locked on John. “I am not just a bunch of photons and force fields.”

“I really think you might be,” John smirked.

The Doctor bounced on his heels a few times, taking deep breaths. That’s what he was always telling his patients when they needed to calm down, right? Take deep breaths? Because it really wasn’t working. 

“It has taken me a _long_ time to establish myself as an equal member of this crew. And I’m not about to start debating my existence with you.” The Doctor straightened himself up, holding his head a little higher as his resolve deepened. “At the very least, I want you to treat me as a living being.”

John was quiet, hardly meeting the Doctor’s eye as he looked around the office. Good. Maybe he’d finally realized he was in the wrong.

“Just look at your ship,” the Doctor continued. “It’s bio-neural circuitry is even more advanced than Voyager’s. And that’s why you’re determined to fix it. Because it’s not just a machine. It has almost all of the makings of a lifeform.”

“My TARDIS was grown,” John said with a puzzled expression. “There’s no question as to whether or not she’s alive.”

“And yet, you do still call her a ship. She’s a living machine. Just like I am a living Hologram.” The Doctor sighed, feeling like he wasn’t getting through, and wasting precious time in trying. “I may not have been created organically, but I _do_ have consciousness. I am more than the sum of my parts. And isn’t that one way we classify a lifeform?”

John was quiet again. But then he did something the Doctor wasn’t expecting.

He frowned, apologetically this time. Sadly, this time. And then he looked up and met his eyes.

“I’m sorry I didn’t see you before,” John said, his Scottish brogue low and serious. 

The Doctor nodded, allowing a small smile to quirk his lips.

“Apology accepted.” They held each other’s gaze for just a moment before the Doctor clasped his hands together with a frown. “Now we’d better start studying this virus before we lose both of our ships.”

John’s lips turned into an honest smile. 

“That, Doctor, is an excellent idea.”

Just once more, they met each other’s eyes and shared a smile. 

Then, they got to work.

…………………. …………………….. ………………………. ……………………………..

The TARDIS was a mechanical marvel. It was a marvel in every way, really, but B’Elanna was specifically enamored with its mechanical parts (she _was_ and engineer, after all). The central control panel was filled with gadgets and gizmos she could hardly identify. It was almost impossible for her, Tom, and Harry to begin their investigation, this machine was so complicated.

Of course, discussing nitty gritty mechanics seemed to be beyond the two of them today, anyway.

“Woah, Harry, look at this!” Tom said with a wide, goofy smile. He made a few motions with the controls he had his hands on, making noises as he pretended to push buttons and pull levers. “This place is more decked out than the Delta Flyer.”

B’Elanna rolled her eyes at him, but she couldn't help but smile. Whenever the baby decided to be born, she was sure to have a father eager to give up all of his piloting shifts for playtime. Perhaps a little _too_ eager.

“Hey, Tom,” B’Elanna called, trying to lull him out of whatever daydream he was living. “We’re supposed to be studying the effects of the virus, remember? We’re not just here to play.”

Tom’s face fell. But, despite his grumpy expression, he slid his hands off of the console and picked up a Tricorder instead.

“You should let yourself have a little bit of fun, B’Elanna,” he suggested. “This place must be a wonderland for you. It’s a heck of a lot different than our tech.”

She tilted her head, begrudgingly smiling as he nudged her shoulder with his own.

“It’s a great ship,” she admitted, then raised her brow. “But unfortunately it’s also got a bad case of whatever this virus is. Look at this.”

Her Tricorder readings were conclusive enough: the central column of the TARDIS, what B’Elanna only knew to label as her ‘soul’, was completely infected. As she ran her Tricorder over the column, dots of red popped up all over the screen. At one point, the virus became so prevalent that the device began beeping at her, furious that she would let a machine become so infected.

Tom released his breath in a whistle, shaking his head. He didn’t say a word, but met B’Elanna’s eyes with an equally concerned expression.

If the doctors didn’t figure out a cure to this thing soon...

“Harry,” Tom called.

They turned to find Harry spinning in a slow circle, staring at the ceiling. His mouth was ajar, a dazed expression on his face. In other circumstances, B’Elanna would have been worried to find him so unfocused; that just wasn’t Harry’s way. But in this place, strange behavior seemed a normal response.

“This place really is bigger on the inside,” said Harry. “It’s like we stepped through the wardrobe into Narnia.”

“Narnia?” said B’Elanna.

Tom explained, “A magical world from an old Earth novel. A few kids entered a wardrobe and ended up in a completely different place.”

“That’s what happens in the TARDIS,” a voice said behind them.

It was John Smith, with a mad look in his eye and a smile that did not fit the state of his poor ship. He held both railings as he stepped into the ship, leaning forward slightly and then jumping forward with a hop. B’Elanna blinked a few times. After seven years, she was much more used to Starfleet types, mostly professional and some uptight, than...whatever the hell John’s ‘type’ was.

“Don’t worry, Mr. Kim,” John patted Harry on the shoulder. “Everyone has that reaction when they come in here for the first time. You’ll get used to it. Hey!” He pointed a finger straight at Tom. “Don’t touch that!”

“Oops,” Tom dropped the spanner in his hand. 

The noise it made when it hit the floor echoed through the room like a cannon going off. At least, that’s how it sounded from B’Elanna’s position. She honestly believed John was about to start screaming at poor Tom, whose face was ashen. The spanner was definitely broken from the fall, probably irreparable. Two small pieces of metal had broken off at collision and were now halfway across the room. 

But John did not shout. He didn’t even seem to notice the dropped spanner now. 

His eyes were locked on the central column of the TARDIS as it churned up and down in convulsive spurts. 

He approached the central console with a reverent expression on his face. Unblinking. Irritated frown sinking into something else. Sadness? Regret? B’Elanna couldn’t quite place it. But whatever the feeling was, John was feeling it deeply.

She and Tom stepped out of the way as John reached forward. He set his hand on the glass casing holding in the column, then closed his eyes. Breathing deeply, he stroked the glass with his thumb; almost caressing it. B’Elanna had heard of isolated engineers treating their ships in such a manner. And though she could admit to speaking to Voyager every now and then, she had never done anything quite like this.

It was a strange sight to behold. But in its own way, it was rather sweet. 

“Don’t worry, old girl,” he whispered. “You’ll feel better soon.”

The TARDIS made a groaning, grating sound in response. John grimaced, then lifted his head and let go of the glass. In the silence that followed his close interaction with his ship, B’Elanna crossed her arms and made an attempt at a joke.

“Gee, Tom, we’ve finally found someone who’s just as obsessed with his car as you are.”

“Car?” John said, turning a furrowed brow toward her. “This is the 24th century, is it not?”

B’Elanna had no idea how to respond to that. Was he making a joke? Because his tone hadn’t sounded like he was making a joke.

She decided, for her sanity if nothing else, to take it as a joke.

“Yes, it is the 24th century. But this one,” she nudged Tom’s shoulder, “is in love with 20th century Earth vehicles. Don’t ask me why.”

John’s brows furrowed further. He turned slowly toward them. For a moment, B’Elanna couldn’t help but think he looked like an owl she had seen on a camping trip once.

“Where do you find cars in the 24th century?” he asked.

B’Elanna looked to Tom, who gave her an equally baffled expression. This guy drove a Police Call Box and knew about cars...but had apparently never been to Earth anytime recently? 

Tom said, “Well, usually we use the Holodeck.”

John turned the rest of his body toward them; slowly and deliberately. “The Holodeck…”

Harry took a step forward, picking up the forgotten spanner as he explained, “the Holodeck is a room filled with Holo-Emitters. It works off the same principle as the transporter we used to get you here, turning energy into matter and vice versa. But for photonic objects and people, it only works inside the field of the emitters.”

He, B’Elanna, and Tom shared another round of confused expressions. Then Harry turned back to John. 

“We thought...well, your vehicle looks like it’s from Earth. We assumed you’d been there before somehow.”

“Ah,” John gasped. His eyes looked a bit distant, like his mind was on something else entirely even as he continued this conversation. “Right, yes. Of course. Now, er, where can I find this Holodeck?”

Tom said, “Well, there are two. One’s on Deck 6, and one’s on Deck 14. I personally prefer Deck 6. It’s in section 9.”

“The computer can help you find it,” Harry said, then faltered. “If...the captain permits.”

He shared a look with B’Elanna and Tom. Maybe they shouldn’t have told him? But somehow, the more they learned about John and his strange ways...the more trusting they became of him. It was paradoxical, of course. But the weirder John made himself sound, the less B’Elanna feared him. The less she accused him.

Maybe it was because this ship was a ship of misfits. And, somehow, they had stumbled upon one of the biggest misfits of all. Anachronistic. Mad hair. Piercing eyes. And yet...and yet gentle, in a way? Like he would never knowingly harm an insect, let alone a person. 

John opened his mouth as if to say something else. But then, abruptly, he spun on his heel and disappeared out the door. 

B’Elanna blinked a few times. Then she turned back to her friends.

“Well,” she sighed. “We’d better get back to studying this thing. That’s about all we can do right now.” Opening her Tricorder, she shook her head back into ‘work mode’. “Tom, how about you see what the navigation panel looks like. Harry, you and I will work on the guts of this thing.” 

“Got it,” they both replied in tandem.

B’Elanna nodded with a smile. They would figure out this virus. They would figure out John Smith. And, somehow, they would figure out this TARDIS, too. 

That was what engineers did.

And even if she didn’t know what, or who, John Smith was, B’Elanna Torres knew who she was.

She was an engineer.

…………………… ………………………… …………………….. ……………………..

“Why, pray tell, are we on the Holodeck instead of curing a currently incurable disease?” the Doctor asked.

The hologrid shined all around him and the Doctor, glaring its gridiron pattern into his holographic irises. Today’s work had been...less than successful. They’d found about a million things this virus _wasn’t_. But still; that meant that they should be in Sickbay, searching more databases; learning more about its structure. Now was certainly not the time to be galavanting on the Holodeck.

“We’re here,” John said, stepping forward and then turning around himself to take in the space with a curious smile, “to find answers.”

The Doctor thought this over, then shook his head.

“I don’t know what we’re going to find here that we haven’t already found in my office. The Holodeck can’t create a program unless we input the data. And right now, we have an exceedingly low amount of data.”

John held up a finger.

“Ah, but that’s why we’re not here to write a program. We’re here to be inspired.”

The Doctor blinked at him.

“Inspired?”

“Yes,” John said, holding out the ‘ess’ sound as he paced around the room with a flourishing arm. “What do you see here?”

The Doctor tilted his head, furrowing his eyebrows. “The Hologrid?”

“And what does the hologrid do?”

“It manipulates photons to create simulated matter.”

“Think broader. You said it earlier.”

The Doctor sighed, looking to the ceiling. Really, this all felt incredibly pointless. He wasn’t a schoolboy, and this wasn’t a pop quiz. They had a serious virus to stop.

“What did I say?” he deadpanned, wishing John would just explain himself.

John’s expression fell slightly, dampened by the Doctor’s lack of enthusiasm.

“Bio-neural circuitry. More than the sum of its parts.” 

The Doctor stared into space, then shook his head.

“I still don’t see what-”

“Oh come on!” John said with a grin. He clapped his hands and leaned forward, goading the Doctor into joining his wild train of thought. “Your Ensign Kim said it; you know, there’s a man who deserves a promotion.”

“What did he say?”

John sighed, standing straighter. Resigned to explaining himself.

“The Holodeck and the transporter both convert energy into matter, and vice versa. There is no hardline difference between the two. Biology, mechanics; they both involve pieces making up a whole. You’re made of photons and force fields; I’m flesh and blood.”

The Doctor nodded, trying to predict where John was heading with this. 

“Are you suggesting we use the holodeck to fight the virus?”

“Forget the Holodeck!” John shrieked, still wearing that mad and maddening smile. “I’m saying...the virus is attacking the TARDIS and Voyager’s biological systems, as well as their mechanical systems. It’s a biological virus and a computer virus rolled into one. So to fix it-”

“To fix it,” the Doctor said hurriedly, raising a pointed finger, “we need to fight it from both angles. Biological and technological. Matter and energy.”

“Bingo!” John raised his arms in triumph. “Me and you need to fight the biological side, with an antiviral drug. And all of your brilliant engineers need to create a computer code that’ll fight it through the circuitry.”

“It’s so simple, it’s genius,” the Doctor said with a smile of his own. Then he let it drop as he gained composure. “But I still believe we could have discussed this in my office.”

John waved him off, but they shared a smile.

One step closer to solving this thing.

One step closer to healing.


	4. Antivirus

Chapter Four  
"Antivirus"

B’Elanna stabbed the...whatever it was on her plate, and shoved it into her mouth before she could second guess herself. They’d had to turn off the replicators when they started serving tofu instead of meat; meat instead of tofu. One poor ensign had discovered his pomegranate juice tasted like medicine. Basically, the ship’s condition was getting worse. The circuitry was confused; acting like the wires were crossed even though they definitely weren’t.

When the lights flickered, yet again, and the half of them went out entirely, B’Elanna set down her fork and replaced it with an engineering PADD.

“Alright,” she said to Harry and Tom, who were staring at their own plate’s with much trepidation (Neelix insisted it was fine; vegetables from the last planet they’d landed on. But the boys weren’t all that convinced). “We’d better get this figured out before the Captain gets caffeine withdrawal.”

Harry stifled his laugh.

“You can’t talk about the captain like that,” he said, still smirking.

B’Elanna raised an eyebrow, matching his smile. “As if I didn’t hear you talking about Chakotay’s boxing match yesterday. What did you call him? Twinkle toes?”

Harry’s face fell slightly.

“If you tell him I said that, I _will_ deny it.”

“Relax, Harry,” Tom said. “You won’t get demoted for commenting on our first officer’s losing streak.”

“Demoted to what? ‘Acting Ensign’?”

The trio laughed, stabbing hesitantly at their food again. Seven years in the Delta Quadrant had made it easier to do this; to laugh in the face of danger. To make conversation even as the ship threatened their very lives. To take necessary lunch breaks while saving the day. 

B’Elanna raised the PADD again, reading over the specs. “This line of code is driving me crazy. I still can’t figure out what’s wrong with it.”

“Can I see it again?” Harry took the PADD from her hand, swallowing his food with a grimace. He looked over the endless lines of code they'd written and rewritten in the last few hours, sighing deeply. “Nope. I can’t figure it out.”

“Wait,” B’Elanna grabbed the PADD back from him, holding it with both hands. Her eyes darted across the screen, hungry to search for whatever her brain had caught onto. “There!”

Harry turned the PADD so he could see it. “What?”

“There!” repeated B’Elanna. 

One small typo, back ten lines before the end. That was what had held them up for the last hour; surely it was!

B’Elanna typed furiously, fixing the only error she could find. When she was done, she took a deep breath. 

“Okay, the diagnostic says everything is fine,” she said. “Now we just have to test it.”

Tom dropped his fork, giving up the war between his hungry stomach and whatever block was in his mind telling him not to eat the vibrant pink concoction Neelix had set in front of him. He snatched the container sitting on the next table over, holding it carefully. This thing held the virus. This thing was dangerous to every system that ran their ship. 

He gave B’Elanna a hard, long look.

“You’re sure putting this stuff in a PADD won’t affect the rest of the ship?”

B’Elanna rolled her eyes. “It’s completely unconnected. I’ve taken it offline, disconnected every power cell that could possibly interface with Voyager-”

“Okay,” Tom handed over the container. 

Harry gave him a smirk. “You worried?”

“A little!” Tom said with an anxious laugh. “You should’ve seen what happened with my helm control when this virus hit it. It was like the ship was drunk. And _not_ on synthehol.” 

B’Elanna picked up one of the PADDs strewn on their table, careful to choose one that did not contain the antivirus software. She connected the virus container into one of the PADD’s ports. Her face was as apologetic as it was excited, a strange combination for a strange sort of day.

“Sorry about this, PADD,” she murmured, checking the connections. “You’re the sacrificial targ today.”

Harry furrowed his brows. “Is that a thing?”

B’Elanna elected not to answer him. Because at that moment, the virus hit the PADD. The screen fizzed in and out, a blur of colors and fizzing signals. 

“Okay,” she picked up the PADD containing the antivirus software. “Now we just connect this and-”

As soon as the proper connection was made between the two PADDs, the screen flickered back to normal. It was just like hitting a switch; the software worked fast and it worked perfectly. B’Elanna, Harry, and Tom gasped at the result, crowding around the little PADD like it was the most interesting sight in the world. 

After a few seconds, B’Elanna picked up the now-functioning PADD and ran a diagnostic. 

“The virus is gone. Completely gone.” She released a hearty laugh, matched only by Tom and Harry’s. “We did it!”

“You did it,” Tom noted.

“Er,” Harry raised his hand slightly. “I’m _pretty_ sure it was a joint effort.”

B’Elanna touched both of their shoulders as she jumped to her feet. 

“Come on,” she said, grabbing the PADD containing the antivirus coding. “We have to show this to the captain.”

…………………. ………………………. ……………………… ………………………..

The briefing room was buzzing with energy. The kind of energy you can feel at a sports event, or a concert. The kind that couldn’t really be seen because none of the lights were working.

But in the glow of a few portable lanterns and wrist-lights, the team was as active as ever. B’Elanna, Harry, the Doctor, and John stood at the front of the room right in front of the star-strewn window. They each paced back and forth excitedly as they spoke to the rest of the senior officers, bouncing on the balls of their feet.

“It was amazing, Captain,” B’Elanna said, resting her hands on the table. “It was almost instantaneous. As soon as the software touched the virus, it completely destroyed it.”

Harry, leaning on the wall with crossed arms, shook his head with a smile. “I almost felt guilty about it. The poor thing doesn’t stand a chance against us.”

The Doctor turned from one engineer to the other, then to the Captain.

“John and I had a similar experience. It’s almost like...well, I hesitate to say it.”

He looked to John for assistance. And there, the excitement of the room seemed to die. 

John was standing rather ominously in the corner, face hidden halfway by shadow and by his hand holding his chin. He took a few steps across the room, staring at the floor in front of him rather than any of his companions.

“It’s almost like the virus wants to be destroyed,” he said.

Maybe it was just his accent, making the words sound more dramatic than they were. Maybe it was the lighting. But something about his statement sent a chill through the air. 

Something about it made everyone uneasy.

He turned to the rest of them. He did not wear a smile, like Harry, or bright eyes like B’Elanna. His face did not show astonishment, like the Doctor’s, or hope, like the Captain’s. John was worried. 

John was doubtful.

“We need to administer the antiviral drug at the same time as the antivirus software,” he said, as if he hadn’t just cast doubt into their entire plan. “I can do both with my TARDIS at the same time, but you’ll need multiple teams to take care of Voyager.”

“That’s easy,” B’Elanna shrugged. “I’ll inject it into the graviton emitters, where it all started.”

“And I,” Harry said, glancing to the Captain to double check, “can send it into the computers onto the Bridge. That way, it’ll definitely reach key systems first; give them protection in case something goes wrong.”

“Meanwhile,” the Doctor finished, “I will inject the antiviral drug into one of the gel packs in Sickbay. From there, it should spread throughout the bio neural network.”

Captain Janeway nodded, sitting back in her chair. She gave each member of her team a smile, but held her gaze on John.

“I’ll coordinate everything from the Bridge,” she said. “If there are no more questions, I think we’d better get started. This thing is spreading rapidly, and I don’t want to wait until life support is barely functional.”

“Aye, Captain,” the others said, then started to filter out of the room. 

“John,” Janeway called, standing. 

He stopped and spun around with a boyish expression on his face; a drastic change from the cryptic frown he’d given her a few minutes ago. 

“You seemed unsure about all of this,” she said, setting a hand on her back. “Why?”

He scratched the back of his head, glancing out the window. But Janeway was having none of his casual brush-offs. She stared at him, unblinkingly, until he met her eyes again.

With a sigh, John relaxed his shoulders.

“Right now, the virus is highly susceptible to our attacks,” he explained in a low voice that had her focused on every word. “But if we don’t coordinate this perfectly...the virus could mutate. Or we might give it instructions on how to fight this, without wiping out every last cell.”

“So you’re saying we could create a superbug, unless the timing is perfect.”

“Yes.”

She stared off into space for a long moment, a frown tugging at her lips. But then she shook this off and turned back to him with a small smile.

“Well then...let’s get this timed perfectly.”

…………………. ………………………. …………………. …………………………

“Alright,” Captain Janeway said through the Comm. She stared straight forward, at the monitor that usually displayed space and all of its wonders.

Right now, it was a blank screen. The virus had hit the monitor’s circuitry and would soon hit the rest of the Bridge functions. 

They were running out of time.

“We’ve run through this a dozen times now, but this is going to be the real deal.” 

She spared a glance at Chakotay. He was holding onto the arms of his seat like he was on an old Earth amusement ride. It was...less than encouraging. But he gave her a smile to compensate.

“You all know the risks, and you all know the drill. I will count down from three, then I will say, ‘mark’.”

Chakotay pushed himself out of his seat suddenly to stand beside Janeway. They met eyes, nodded, and then he turned up to the ceiling.

“Engineering, check,” he said.

“Engineering here,” said B’Elanna.

“Bridge, check.”

“Ensign Kim here, sir,” Harry said from behind them.

Janeway and Chakotay shared a short smile.

“Sickbay, check.”

“Sickbay here.”

“TARDIS, check.”

“Here,” John said simply. 

Janeway took a deep breath, turning back to the blank screen in front of her. It was now or never. 

“Three...two...one...mark.”

There were various sounds of beeps and blips and static. Janeway could barely hear it all over the roar of blood through her ears. If this went well, the problem would be over. If it went badly, the problem was only just beginning. There was so much riding on this. The safety of her ship, her crew, God only knew what else. 

Chakotay spun the monitor by his seat around, looking at it closely.

“The antivirus has been administered in the graviton emitters, the Bridge control panel, the TARDIS...the gel packs are still infected.”

He gave Janeway a wide-eyed expression that had her clapping her Comm Badge without delay. 

“Doctor? Have you injected the antivirus?” 

The line was absolutely silent. 

“Doctor? Doctor, respond.”

When there was still only an answer of silence, Janeway shook her head.

“ _Someone_ go to sickbay and inject the gel packs.”

John suddenly cut through the Comm line, “I’m on my way. I can get there the fastest.”

Janeway’s breath caught in her throat. She could feel her heart pounding in her chest, not unlike it did when a Borg cube appeared on their sensors. If he didn’t get there in time...if this thing did become a superbug...and what had happened to the Doctor? Was he offline, unable to even help if things got out of hand? Had his program been infected, or worse?”

She looked at Chakotay. Then she looked at Harry. And, in one of those terrifying and increasingly common moments in her life, Captain Janeway felt completely at the will of the universe.

…………………. …………………. ……………………. …………………… ………

John sprinted as fast as he could, through hallways, down corridors. That was his life, after all, wasn’t it? Eleventh hour? Last minute? Always on the run, and never able to stop because someone always needed him.

He would admit that this body wasn’t _quite_ as fast as his previous few. But he could still outrun anyone on this ship. He was still a Timelord, and had the agility of a...something that had a good agility. He couldn’t think of anything right now; he had to get to Sickbay.

The Sickbay doors slid open as he crossed the threshold, revealing a scene he had grown all too accustomed to. A hypospray lay forgotten on the floor, broken in the place where it had hit the floor. Beside it lay the Doctor, also seemingly broken on the floor. 

It was strange to see a Hologram with the pale face and limp body of someone who had fainted. But in his many, many, many years, John had seen stranger. And besides, there was a job to be done.

He snatched a different hypospray off of one of the carts and filled it with the precious, thankfully intact, antiviral substance they had worked on all afternoon. The gel pack sat in an open panel in the wall near where the Doctor lay. John stepped around him awkwardly and injected the gel pack.

But even as he did so, he knew it was too late. It had been at least a few minutes in between the administrations; the virus had time to learn, adapt, mutate. But he had to try, anyway. He had to hope.

“Captain,” said John, calling up to the ceiling in hopes that she could hear him, “I’ve injected the gel pack.”

“We’re not seeing any change,” the Captain replied.

John sighed, inspecting the gel pack manually. It was a disturbing color, swirling greens and purples with dots of white like an old slice of bread. And it didn’t seem to be returning to normal. In fact, its condition seemed to be getting worse.

John left the gel pack, setting the hypospray on the nearest workbench, and knelt on the floor beside the Doctor. He looked to be nearly unconscious, face pale and wincing in pain every so often. When John set his fingers on his face, he found his skin burning hot, like a raging fever. 

“Doctor,” John said, tapping his cheek. “Doctor!”

When there was no response other than an incomprehensible murmur and a shifting of his legs, John sat up with a sigh. He looked back up at the ceiling.

“I have bad news, and I have very bad news.”

“Oh?” Janeway replied with a grunt.

“I believe we’ve created a superbug,” John said, then turned back to the Doctor on the floor beneath him. “And it’s infected your Doctor.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i very much apologize for all this speak of viruses and mutations in the year of our lord 2021 but it couldnt be helped


	5. A Possible Solution

Chapter Five

John had never seen a sick hologram before. He hadn’t really thought much about holograms at all before today, actually. They were usually only used to send Christmas cards, hold Jedi meetings, that sort of thing. But as he glanced up to look at the biobed in front of him, John realized just how wrong he had been about holograms all along. The Doctor didn’t look like an organized assemblage of lights and force fields. He looked like a man; a very sick man who needed help and needed it soon.

His face was paler than it had been earlier, tinged with gray near his tightly shut eyes and frowning lips. Even his breathing was strangely human. His chest shook slightly with every breath, rattling the Comm badge still pinned to his sweaty uniform. 

The monitors weren’t much help. Of course they weren’t; they could hardly identify that the Doctor was even there, let alone why he may be malfunctioning in this way. To discover that, they’d need the computer. Which, of course, was completely on the fritz. 

“John,” the Doctor gasped suddenly. His voice was low and rugged, almost like it belonged to someone else. But when his eyes struggled open and landed on John’s, it was clear that he had spoken. 

John took a step forward. Admittedly, he had to force his legs to comply. Though he usually went by the name ‘Doctor’, he had very little experience with this sort of thing. He hated hospitals and sickbays alike. And watching someone suffer without being able to do anything...that was the thing he hated most about his mad, difficult life in the TARDIS.

The Doctor swallowed, letting his eyes drip shut again.

“B’Elanna knows about my program. If anyone can help...but then again,” he sighed, shaking his head defeatedly. 

John set a hand on the Doctor’s shoulder. There was no risk of contagion. And even if there was...well, John felt so guilty he may have done it anyway. It was his TARDIS that transferred the virus into Voyager’s computer, which contaminated the Doctor’s program. That meant that if his program was irretrievably lost...it would be John’s fault. 

“I’ll have her come here,” John said, waiting until he was sure that the Doctor had met his eyes before taking the Comm badge from his chest and clicking it, as he had watched others do. 

As John called for B’Elanna’s assistance, the doors slid open. Captain Janeway entered with a serious, concerned expression furrowing her brows and lining her mouth. When she saw the Doctor laying on the central biobed, she hurried her gait and came to stand on the opposite side to John. Her face went through almost the entire range of human emotion within a few moments, from frustration and anger to sympathy and care. 

When she set her hands on the Doctor’s arm, he woke with a frown.

“Captain,” he murmured, “I'm sorry. I tried to get rid of the virus before-”

His sentence was broken with a cough, that led to more coughs, which led to him sitting up halfway in bed with a grimace on his face.

When his coughing had finally subsided, Janeway helped him settle back down against the bed, shaking her head as she worried her bottom lip.

“Don’t worry about that now," she soothed, stroking his sideburn with her thumb. "You just focus on fighting the virus, and we’ll focus on finding a cure.”

At that moment, B’Elanna hurried into Sickbay with her Engineering toolkit. She gave a wary look to the Doctor, pausing for just a second in hesitation, then went to his side next to Janeway. With her Tricorder, she began scanning the Doctor’s Mobile Emitter with a determined expression in her eye.

“I think the virus is manifesting itself as a human ailment,” B’Elanna explained. “It’s trying to understand biology versus technology. It attacks the tech, but the symptoms are showing up like a flu of some kind.”

Janeway suddenly looked up with a brighter look in her eye.

“It’s taking elements from each program, each system, and using them to display illness or confusion or...whatever else it’s been doing,” said Janeway. “The replicators didn’t stop working altogether; they started giving out the wrong items; like a waiter might do if they were under the weather.”

“And the Doctor’s illness,” B’Elanna pointed, “A while ago, he added a temporary program to make himself appear sick. It’s probably still stored in his memory somewhere, and the virus accessed it. It’s almost like it’s...sentient.”

Janeway looked down at the Doctor, who had gone quiet again with closed eyes and troubled breathing.

“Is he in any real danger?”

B’Elanna scanned the Mobile Emitter again. Her eyes widened, and then she frowned deeply.

“His program’s degrading at about the same rate that this ‘illness’ is progressing.” She sighed, pulling Janeway back a step or two to add, “Captain, I’m no doctor. But I don’t think he’s going to last the night.”

Janeway’s eyes lit up. She looked from B’Elanna to the Doctor.

“It’s that serious?” she asked quietly. 

B’Elanna nodded as she continued to stare at the Doctor. “If his program continues to degrade at the same rate...it’ll be irreversible within 8 hours. I expect his physical condition will look worse throughout the night, too; but that’s just conjecture.”

With that solemn statement, the trio spent a silent moment staring into space. As if to make their contemplation more nerve-wracking, the Doctor began to shiver in between them. His teeth chattered so loudly that Janeway covered him from foot to neck with a blanket. Then she looked up at John with her usual Captain’s steadiness.

“John, B’Elanna; I want you to spend the next hour researching this virus. See if you can detect any sentience; any way we can communicate with it or find a way to stop it without another antiviral agent. Maybe if we extend a hand, it won’t be so quick to destroy us.” She tapped her Comm badge as she turned down to the Doctor. “Janeway to Paris; I want you in Sickbay monitoring the Doctor. Treat him the same way you’d treat a human patient. It might just slow down the rate of this virus.”

“Aye, Ma’am,” Tom said from the other side.

Janeway looked up again, taking a quick moment to breathe.

“We’re fixing this tonight. Before our ship is destroyed. And,” she set a hand on the Doctor’s still-shivering form beneath her, “before anyone is killed.”

……………………… ……………………………… ……………………………………..

“Alright, what have we got?” Janeway asked. She leaned on the conference table with both hands, a background of stars shining behind her. Her eyes were piercing as they looked from John to B’Elanna to Tuvok. Her lips were a thin line.

B’Elanna scratched the back of her head as John glanced away. Not wholly encouraging, if Janeway were honest.

“We’ve tried to communicate using what computers are still working,” B’Elanna said, “If this virus understands us, it’s not talking.”

Janeway sighed into her hand. They didn’t have time to perfect yet another antiviral agent _and_ antivirus software _and_ make sure it worked. By B’Elanna’s estimate, they had about seven more hours to solve this thing, max. 

“John?” she said, calling his attention back. “Any ideas?”

He licked his lips, crossing his arms. It was strange to see him suddenly lacking the confidence he’d swaggered around with all day. Maybe the tension was finally getting to him.

“There is one possibility.”

“Name it,” Janeway said abruptly. There wasn’t time for games or vagueness. They needed answers.

John tilted his head, settling his arms beside himself again.

“My TARDIS has telepathic circuitry. I don’t know if they’ve been damaged by the virus, but if they haven’t...we may be able to use them to talk to the virus. At least discover whether or not there's a consciousness at work here.”

“Do you think the virus would be able to detect a telepathic presence?”

John shrugged, “Nothing is certain. But the telepathic circuits are one of the best places to find biology and technology interconnecting. The virus would be right at home there.”

Janeway nodded, eyes brightening. “It’s the best choice we have so far.”

“I must mention,” John said, “There is a certain level of risk-”

“To Hell with risk,” Janeway cut off. “At any second this virus can hit one of our key systems and cause a warp core breach, or take out the environmental controls. Risk is the least of our concern right now.”

John’s eyebrows furrowed slightly. But then he nodded, in a way that was almost solemn.

“I’ll do it,” he said. “My telepathic powers are a bit rusty, but I think I can get the hang of it again.”

Tuvok took a step forward. His expression was calm as ever, but there was a small hint of disappointment tugging at his lips.

“Are you sure you would not prefer me to make the connection? If something goes wrong, you may be the only one who knows enough about the virus to find a different means of stopping it.”

John shook his head. A mad smile came to his face, brightening his eyes.

“Sorry, Tuvok; you can take the next one.” John straightened up. “It was my ship that infected yours. I should be the one to take the risk.”

Janeway looked from one man to the other. She had to admit she was glad John was willing to do the dirty work. It would’ve been too much to bear if both the Doctor and Tuvok ended up in Sickbay on the same day. But she couldn’t help feeling uneasy about John’s fate, either. Tuvok was right: if something happened to John, they might never get rid of this virus. 

“John, you make the connection,” she said, a pit of guilt sinking into her stomach. “But Tuvok, I want you to monitor him with me. If anything goes wrong, I want someone who knows about telepathy there to help.”

“Aye, Captain,” Tuvok said with a nod. 

Janeway pushed off the table, adjusting her shirt as she stood to her fullest height.

“Alright,” she said, “Let’s do this.”


End file.
